From an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and one of the leading China correspondents of his generation comes an eloquent and vivid chronicle of the world's most successful authoritarian state -- a nation undergoing a remarkable transformation.

Philip P. Pan's groundbreaking book takes us inside the dramatic battle for China's soul and into the lives of individuals struggling to come to terms with their nation's past -- the turmoil and trauma of Mao's rule -- and to take control of its future. Capitalism has brought prosperity and global respect to China, but the Communist government continues to resist the demands of its people for political freedom.

Pan, who reported in China for the Post for seven years and speaks fluent Chinese, eluded the police and succeeded in going where few Western journalists have dared.

From the rusting factories in the industrial northeast to a tabloid newsroom in the booming south, from a small-town courtroom to the plush offices of the nation's wealthiest tycoons, he tells the gripping stories of ordinary men and women fighting for political change. An elderly surgeon exposes the government's cover-up of the SARS epidemic. A filmmaker investigates the execution of a young woman during the Cultural Revolution. A blind man is jailed for leading a crusade against forced abortions carried out under the one-child policy.

The young people who filled Tiananmen Square in the spring of 1989 saw their hopes for a democratic China crushed in a massacre, but Pan reveals that as older, more pragmatic adults, many continue to push for justice in different ways. They are survivors whose families endured one of the world's deadliest famines during the Great Leap Forward, whose idealism was exploited during the madness of the Cultural Revolution, and whose values have been tested by the booming economy and the rush to get rich.

Philip P. Pan is a foreign correspondent for THE WASHINGTON POST and the newspaper's former Beijing bureau chief. During his tour from 2000 to 2007, he won the Livingston Award for Young Journalists in international reporting, the Overseas Press Club's Bob Considine Award for best newspaper interpretation of international affairs, and the Asia Society's Osborn Elliott Prize for excellence in journalism about Asia. He lives with his wife and son in New York, and will begin a new assignment as the Moscow bureau chief for THE POST in 2008.

Philip Pan's new book OUT OF MAO'S SHADOW documents the difficult lives of those changing China from within. From a blind lawyer fighting the one child policy to a real estate maven, made wealthy by the opening up of the economy. Find out more, and read Pan's ongoing blog.

Visit Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of New China Website

Simon & Schuster, June 2008
Hardcover, 368 pages
ISBN-10: 1-4165-3705-8
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-3705-2

Priew Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of New China

Provided by Google Book.

Table of Contents:
Introduction
Part I REMEMBERING
1. The Public Funeral
2. Searching for Lin Zhao's Soul
3. Blood and Love
4. The Cemetery
Part II NO BETTER THAN THIEVES
5. Arise, Slaves, Arise!
6. The Rich Lady
7. The Party Boss
Part III STRUGGLE SESSIONS
8. The Honest Doctor
9. The Newspaperman
10. The People's Trial
11. Blind Justice
Epilogue
Note on Sources
Acknowledgments
Index

Read An Excerpt: Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of New China

Chapter One: The Public Funeral

THEY came from the walled compounds of the Communist Party elite and the shantytowns of the disgruntled and dispossessed, from universities and office towers, from booming cities and dirt-poor villages across China. They came by the thousands, citizens of a nation on the rise, defying the lessons drilled into them by state propaganda and the caution taught them by a century of bitter experience.

On a cold January morning, in sleek sedans and battered taxicabs, on bicycle and on foot, they made their way past security checkpoints, refusing to turn back even when police snapped photos and recorded their names for the state’s secret files. Slowly, they converged on a vast cemetery on the western outskirts of Beijing. There, in a small memorial hall, on a dais surrounded by evergreen leaves, lay the man whose death they had come to mourn, a man the party had told them to forget. ...

Watch Video: PBS Interviews Philip Pan (The Author)

"I think there's a lot going on beneath the surface of this beautiful China that's being displayed. There's a struggle really, underway for the future of the country."

As the Olympics are set to close, Bill Moyers interviews Philip Pan, foreign correspondent and former Beijing bureau chief for the WASHINGTON POST, on how the emerging economic power of China looks from the ground.

TRANSCRIPT:

BILL MOYERS: No American has had a closer look at China's abuses than my guest, Philip Pan. A graduate of Harvard who studied Chinese at Peking University, Philip Pan was the Beijing bureau chief of the WASHINGTON POST between the years 2000 and 2007. He traveled far and wide in the country and his reporting won awards from the Asia Society and the Overseas Press Club. He's now enroute to Moscow where he will be the POST's new bureau chief. But he stopped in New York to talk with me about his new book: OUT OF MAO'S SHADOW: THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUL OF A NEW CHINA.

BILL MOYERS: Welcome to the JOURNAL.

PHILIP PAN: Thanks.

BILL MOYERS: We saw so many of the wonders of China, the Wall, the Gorges Dam. We saw these splendid athletes in competition. But there was a lot we didn't see. What were you imagining that we were not seeing as the games developed?

PHILIP PAN: Well, I think there's a lot going on beneath the surface of this beautiful China that's being displayed. There's a struggle really, underway for the future of the country. And a lot of the people pushing for change, and their voices, were not going to be heard during these Olympics.

In the long term, perhaps these games will have a liberating effect on the country. But certainly in the short term, certainly in the run up to the games, we've seen a tightening of controls across the country, not just in Beijing.  ...

REVIEWS:

“Entrancing… Out of Mao’s Shadow is a work of reporting, but it is also a work of conscience.”
–Andrew J. Nathan, The Washington Post

“Compelling… It is Mr. Pan’s achievement in Out of Mao’s Shadow that he makes the dark side of China’s glittering economic growth palpably real to the reader by showing the fallout of these changes on the lives of individual citizens… His portraits of these people possess both the immediacy of first-rate reportage and the emotional depth of field of a novel.”
–Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times

“Engaging… A reminder that even in a nation of 1.3 billion people, individuals can make a difference — and that China still has plenty of heroes left.”
–Tim Morrison, Time

“Masterfully told…”
–Amy Haimerl, Fortune

“A dark, sober, but highly important look at the struggle against repression in China…”
–Lori Valigra, The Christian Science Monitor

“A privileged inside look at China’s populace…”
–Verna Noel Jones, The Rocky Mountain News

“Stands out… Human stories with a political meaning.”
–Bruce Ramsey, The Seattle Times

“A sequence of moving portraits of individual men and women whose sufferings and occasional triumphs symbolize the country’s tragic past and likely future… Pan’s narrative style suits his subject: Businesslike yet evocative, it’s accessible in the best sense.”
–George Walden, Bloomberg

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